


The Long Road Home

by FireEye



Category: Saints Row
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 12:58:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14545269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: Making it back to base with a concussion after getting arrested has never been lonelier.





	The Long Road Home

She woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed.

Both hands, she found, as she tried in vain to rub the sleep from her eyes.  The sterile, cream colored room came into slow focus.

She remembered the distant jingle of shell casings hitting the ground.

She remembered...

... _fuck_.

Johnny flat on his back.  A boot on his chest.  That look on his face.

 _Nothing_.

“Oh, _God_.”

The handcuffs clinked against the hospital bed railings as she struggled to sit up.  A wave of nausea washed over her, and she nearly doubled over forward.  The bright blue blur of a uniformed police officer moved in the periphery of her vision, drawing her attention.

“Please tell me I didn’t fall into another coma.”

The woman glared at her.

She licked her lip, and gave one of the handcuffs a halfhearted tug.

“Yo, think you could lend me a hand over here?  I got an itch.”

Her guard’s cold expression suggested that the answer was, “ _No_.”

So much for civility across enemy lines.

She gave the handcuff another, more thoughtful tug.

~*~

She flashed her badge.

“Hey.”

The nurse at the desk barely looked up from the chart he was studying.  She glanced across the scattered assortment of paperwork, but at a glance it failed offer any immediate answers.

“I need to see the prisoner’s personal effects.”

“You’re going to need a signed release form.”

He moved to walk around her, on his way to his rounds.  Grabbing a handful of his scrubs, she spun him right back around and shoved him into the near wall.

“A’ight.  Let’s try this again.”  She angled the service pistol under his chin.  “Where’s my shit?”

His eyes widened.

“Right this way.”

“ _Thank_ you.”

~*~

A chill wind bit into her skin as she stood on the steps of the staff entrance to the hospital, buttoning up her shirt.  The afternoon sun was far too bright for how distantly cold it was.

She crossed the alley to jump the wall and slipped across the hospital’s green, into the street, making her way down the sidewalk en route to _anywhere but here_.  Her hand slid into her pocket for her earrings, which she pinned in place, one after the next.  She dragged her pendant free by its chain, and strung it over the back of her neck to securely clasp it.

Lastly, she pulled her gloves from where she’d tucked them into her belt, pausing her stride as she tugged them on and strapped them down.

Feeling more like herself again, she breathed deep and let the air rush from her lungs in a puff of frost.

Falling to lean against a near wall, she dug her cell phone out of her pocket and pressed the power button.  The screen lit up, then distorted to black.  She pressed the power button again, and nothing happened.  She smacked it, to no avail.

The battery was dead.

~*~

A police blockade down Adept Way had forced her to double back before she could reach her own turf.

Once she got back to the hideout, they were going to have to do something about that.  Troy’s crew had evidently been feeling cocky lately, and if they were willing to push it this far then it was time for them to remember who owned this city.

She jimmied the lock on the newspaper machine.  By the date, she’d been out for two days, and anything could have happened.  There was plenty in the headlines about gang violence, but the scuffle that had sent her to the hospital didn’t seem to be even a footnote.

Crushing the paper into a crumpled ball, she tossed it aside.  With a little extra effort, she pocketed the quarters from the coin compartment.

There was another police blockade up ahead.

~*~

“C’mon, man, don’t do this to me – pick up your damn phone.”

He was okay.

He _had_ to be okay.

He’d been taking care of himself for ten years longer than she’d even been in the game, she didn’t even know why she was worrying.  All because the last she’d seen of him, he’d been on his back with a shotgun leveled at his chest...

She waited another two agonizing minutes, then fed another quarter into the slot and redialed the number.

Busy signal.

She slammed the phone back onto its cradle hook.

Mind racing, she dialed a different number.

“ _Hey, who wants me?_ ”

“Shaundi, hey.  You heard from Gat?”

“ _What..._ _he’s not with you?_ ”

A patrol car rolled by.  The cop driving it was sizing her up.  She stared back; it was a little late to look inconspicuous.

“ _Hey look, I’m kind of in the middle of something, can I call you ba_ -...”

By the time the sirens came on, she was already running.

~*~

The cop was staring because she was staring... and he was reaching for his wallet, not his holster.  She relaxed as he followed through the motions of paying the cashier.

Marginally.

She grabbed her food, and left.

The cop’s buddy, seated in the booth nearest the door, watched her go.

~*~

She wasted the remainder of the day at the club across the street.

Getting past the police barricades that had been set up on the bridges was going to take some doing.  Part of it was waiting for cover of night, part of it was waiting for the train.

She was late for the latter, but so was the train.

Climbing up the rain shelter, she caught a free ride above the notice of the police skulking in the train cars and patrolling the highway.

~*~

There was a single forgotten bullet casing behind the door.

_Spent casings littered the ground.  She reloaded the revolver and dropped the now-empty quickloader after them in favor of snapping the chamber shut – she could recover it later._

The evidence of their standoff with the police had been swept under the city’s rug.  Or maybe it had simply been washed away with the summer rain.

_Her shoulder burned, blood staining her white shirt.  One of the beat cops had gotten a lucky shot, for all that he hadn’t survived to revel in the achievement._

She sat down on the steps, folding her hands between her knees.

_In the midst of the mayhem, they got separated by the sheer chaotic chance.   She’d ducked into the sanctuary of the Church; Gat had found himself cover amidst the mishmash pileup of squad cars and SWAT vans that clogged the street._

A passing car stilled the crickets.  Once it had gone, they resumed their symphonic harmony.

_A swarm of law enforcement separated them._

_One of the cars in the pileup exploded, changing the field of debris._

_Johnny was facedown on the pavement._

_“ **Gat**!”_

_He stirred, bloody and battered, dragging himself away from the mess.  He turned his head her way;_ s _he didn’t know how he even heard her.  Her ears were ringing so badly she couldn’t hear herself._

_A SWAT cop circled the wreckage, staring down at him.  She lunged out of cover, and Johnny’s expression changed.  She couldn’t hear him._

_There was a sharp pain at the crook in her knee and her knee buckled, sending her to the ground.  Two cops flanked her.  She could see their shadows on the ground, melting into one._

_The SWAT cop kicked Gat over onto his back, planting a boot on his chest as he leveled his shotgun._

She rubbed her eyes.

_Gat’s eyes were on her._

_Another sharp pain jolted through her skull.  Everything went dark._

Crying about it wasn’t going to get her anywhere.

~*~

“C’mon, c’mon, _c’mon_...”

No answer.

She reached, hesitantly, to pull the hook down.

Blowing her hair out of her eyes, she toyed with the quarters in her hand.

It’d been worth a shot, right?  So long as she kept trying....

Feeding the phone one of the remaining quarters, she dialed another number out of memory.  The line connected almost immediately.  No one answered, but she could hear voices in the background.

“Hello?”

_“...Boss?”_

“Were you expecting the General?”

 _“Fuck!”_   Pierce stammered, _“ Where’ve you...?  Where **are** you?”_

“On my way back to the hideout.  Meet me there.”

_“Wait, wait!  Don’t han-!”_

She dropped the phone in its cradle and started off.

The train rattled overhead.

~*~

The familiar pavement of the red light district underfoot was like coming home.  Hell, these days it _was_ coming home.

“Hey, baby, looking for a little something?  Or maybe _someone_ , hmm, to keep you warm?”

Assholes and all.

“Yeah.”

She left the guy gasping for breath, grasping his balls on the pavement.

“Not you, though.”

It was good to be home.

~*~

The radio played a melancholy, static-y oldies love song.

She turned it off.

Purgatory was empty.

She hadn’t seen any Saints on the street, either.  Given the number of cops on the prowl, she hadn’t thought much of it.  But the dead silent club hammered home a dread feeling of uneasiness.

She waited as long as her threadbare patience allowed, grabbing a change of clothes and spare weapon from the locker upstairs.  When Pierce still hadn’t showed up – and neither had anyone else – she wandered back up the stairs through the mission basement, topside.

Her fingers delved into a pocket for her pack of cigarettes as she pushed the door open...

...and froze.

The chill drizzle ran in shimmering rivulets down her skin, a cold shock of ice down her spine, and she raised her hands slowly.

The alley was full of cops, for all that she could barely discern them.  A semi-circle of squad cars stretched from one end of the wall to the other, flanked by several SWAT vans.  All ill-defined shadow.

The floodlights were blinding. 

“You’re under arrest.”

The voice was authority personified.  She couldn’t see, beyond the glare, who had spoken.

“Yo, don’t you gotta read me my rights?”

The voice scoffed.

“You don’t have any.”

Several shadows detached from the light, moving assuredly towards her.  She chewed her lip, biding her time until the first one reached her.

The first two cops went down hard.

Three replaced them.  Two more behind them.

One caught her arm at an bad angle, forcing her into to the wall before kicking her feet out from under her.  Her head hit the pavement, leaving her dazed, and she was fleetingly aware of blood soaking into the shoulder of her shirt.  Three cops struggled to pin her down as her efforts renewed, rain-slick and desperate, and a fourth readied her handcuffs. 

A gunfight broke out.

Chaos right behind it.

Brightly lit shadows clashed on the wall overhead.  It pushed closer, obscuring the blinding radiance.  The men who were still trying to subdue her realized their valiant, stubborn stupidity moments too late.

A shotgun blast ripped through the two that were standing, throwing them back into the dumpster.  One shoved to his feet, only to be knocked aside, right back to the ground.  Of the last two, one wasted the precious final seconds of his life in drawing his weapon and the other made a fraught, wasted run for the light.

A hand gripped her arm, hauling her painfully to her feet to shove her through the open door.

She dashed the rain out of her eyes, blinking her hazy vision clear.  The calloused thumb that traced its way across her cheek was hauntingly familiar; she caught his hand, and her breath caught in her throat.

Gat’s unabashed smirk deepened into a wicked grin at her expression.

Twisting his hand in her hold, he pulled her towards the stairs.

“They got it covered,” he told her, “Let’s go.”

She held her ground.

“Where the fuck have you been?”

“Yeah, we can talk about it later.”  He gave her a sweeping appraisal, gaze lingering on her bloodstained shoulder before flicking back to her face.  “You look like shit.”

He gave her arm another tug, and she relented, following him down into the basement.

At the bottom of the stairs, she slipped in front of him to slide her arms under his.  He tolerated the embrace for a mere handful of seconds, sliding his hand down her back and giving her a pat, before nudging her through the door and leading the way down into Old Stilwater.

~*~

“Someone seemed to think because they got their hands on you they could start makin’ demands.  Started hitting us hard.  I got everybody to ground best I could.”

She listened to Johnny’s side of the story solemnly while he cleaned the abrasions between her knuckles.  They were hidden away in a safe house, the city and its world distant and in plain view through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The rag hit the coffee table, and Gat leaned back into his corner of the couch.  Her resolve wavered, then she sidled up against him, and he draped an arm over her shoulders.  “Doubt they’ll have the balls to hit the club again anytime soon.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”  Everything from the past few days weighed down on top of her; she felt numb.  “Is it me, or have they been really out to get us recently?”

“Know what I think?” Gat asked.  “I think some stupid fucker out to make a name for himself is gotten a little confused ‘bout the way it all works around here.  We oughta send these assholes a wake-up call that ain’t so easy to forget.”

“Yeah,” she agreed.  “Later.”

Johnny didn’t argue, for which she was grateful; she was too tired to wage a war.  For the time being, she devoted her attention to his hand, feeling out the lines and scars on the inside of his fingers, before pressing his thumb to her mouth.

Johnny was safe.

She was safe in his arms, second to nowhere.

Exhaustion caught up with her, and, head on his shoulder, her mind drifted off into peaceful slumber.

**Author's Note:**

> -Based on a Gameplay Story  
> -I got into a five star standoff with the police. (I think given the venue it was with the Ultor Security Cops, but whatever.) Gat got downed under a pile of cop cars and had literally one second left on his "gonna die" meter when I got smoked trying to reach him.  
> -Angst potential? Angst potential. >:)


End file.
